prevails, and the way in which it is directed. The knowledge and
habits of the people, and other temporary causes, particularly
the degree of civil liberty and equality existing at the time,
must always have great influence in exciting and directing this
spirit.) And a greater proportional yearly increase of produce
will almost invariably be followed by a greater proportional
increase of population. But, besides this great cause, which
would naturally give the excess of births above burials greater
at the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign than in the middle of the
present century, I cannot help thinking that the occasional
ravages of the plague in the former period must have had some
tendency to increase this proportion. If an average of ten years
had been taken in the intervals of the returns of this dreadful
disorder, or if the years of plague had been rejected as
accidental, the registers would certainly give the proportion of
births to burials too high for the real average increase of the
population. For some few years after the great plague in 1666, it
is probable that there was a more than usual excess of births
above burials, particularly if Dr Price's opinion be founded,
that England was more populous at the revolution (which happened
only twenty-two years afterwards) than it is at present.

Mr King, in 1693, stated the proportion of the births to the
burials throughout the Kingdom, exclusive of London, as 115 to
100. Dr Short makes it, in the middle of the present century, 111
to 100, including London. The proportion in France for five
years, ending in 1774, was 117 to 100. If these statements are
near the truth; and if there are no very great variations at
particular periods in the proportions, it would appear that the
population of France and England has accommodated itself very